Sweet Shadow
by UndercoverMoffat
Summary: The smell of Sherlock's scarf fades. (TW: Suicide)


For Haylee (moosecrofts on Tumblr, i_want_you_to_make_me on Ao3)

* * *

John can't bring it in himself to throw away Sherlock's things.

That's not to say Mrs. Hudson didn't try, because she most certainly did, on more than one occasion. John stopped her every time, took the objects out of her hands and told her quietly and calmly that he'd take care of it. She always left as he asked, of course, because she's Mrs. Hudson and she never wants to intrude, but not without a concerned glance that she was terribly at hiding. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to see that she was concerned.

He never did take care of it.

It's pathetic, really, how John's life has turned out, how hollowed he's become. He supposes that's what happens when the one you love most in the world throws himself off a roof top, telling you it was a lie, all of it.

It wasn't a lie. There's no way it was a lie.

Not a lie at all.

Sherlock never knew. He never will. John thinks that's the worst part.

He did try, he really did, for Sherlock, just for a little while. Tried to see Ella (she never was of any help, and he ended up throwing out every anti-depressant she shoved on him. After a while, he just stopped going to see her), tried to have nights out with Mike, even tried to _work_ dammit, but his hands always shook, and he misdiagnosed three times, and he was let go. He doesn't blame them. He thanks them for that, actually, because now there's nothing left for him to hold on to.

One can't have attachments when –

Once, Mrs. Hudson comes into the flat again, her eyes tried and a little older around the edges, and she flutters nervously for a minute before crossing the living room and lifting the blue scarf that John can't bear to even look at it. She folds it around her wrist and stares at it for a long moment, before letting loose a soft sigh, and opening her mouth to say, "John, dear, perhaps it's time we -"

"No."

"John -"

"I said, no, Mrs. Hudson," John snaps and he's on his feet, wincing at the imaginary pain in his knee. Psychosomatic limp, Sherlock called it.

He yanks the scarf from her hands, and she gasps out loud in surprise and _fear_ and suddenly John hates himself more than ever as she flees from the flat.

"I'm so, so sorry," he says to thin air.

The scarf smells like _him._ Like chemicals and tobacco and sweat from running. Like faded laundry detergent and smoke and dust.

John curls up with it that night, burying his nose in the fabric and allows himself to pretend, just for one minute, that everything's alright.

It's not alright. It won't ever be alright.

Some nights later, Mike shows up at the flat with a women that lingers behind him. She's pretty, delicate features, fine red hair that flows around her shoulders. She looks like she could be Molly Hooper's older sister. Now, there's a thought.

Mike practically forces John to go out that night, with him, with the girl – Mary, her name, and John snorts at all the M's, thumb rubbing against the rough fabric of Sherlock's scarf tied around his wrist under the table. He fakes some smiles and chokes out a laugh, but there's something in Mary's eyes that tells him he's not fooling anybody.

When he gets back home that night, after a hug from Mary, a soft smile from Mike, he curls up on Sherlock's chair, the scarf still wrapped around his wrist, and cries.

Pathetic, oh so pathetic.

Mike doesn't stop by again.

Mary does, just twice, and they have tea, and she asks him out to dinner, and he declines because he's not going to let somebody get attached to him, not when –

She looks disappointed, and his heart aches a little in his chest, but there's nothing he can do. Nothing at all. It wouldn't be fair to her, and just before she goes, he puts a hand on her forearm and looks at her and tells her he's sorry, and she just stares back like she _knows._

He wouldn't doubt it.

She reminds him of Sherlock, in that way.

The smell of Sherlock's scarf fades.

It's fucking stupid, it's cliché, it's everything not right with the world, but that stupid fucking scarf was his countdown. As soon as it stops smelling like Sherlock, as soon as it starts smelling like nothing at all, that's when John does it. That's when he stares at it in his hands for hours and cries because _God damn it, Sherlock, why. Why did you do this to me, look at what you did to me, you bloody bastard._

_I loved you, I loved you so much, God, please, help me. _

Please, please help poor, pathetic John Watson, he thinks, and he doesn't leave a note. Sherlock's note was a phone call, so his is, and he calls up his sister because there's nobody else left, and he tells her he's sorry. And he cries, but she doesn't.

Maybe she knows, too. Maybe they all do. Maybe that's why the last time he saw Lestrade, he shook his hand a little too long and a little to tight. Maybe that's why the last time he saw Molly, her eyes were wide and pleading and brimming with secrets. Maybe that's why the last time he saw Mrs. Hudson she made him tea and kissed his forehead and left the flat without a word, the door shutting behind her.

He's in Sherlock's room.

He hasn't been in a long time, oh God, how long has it been, three years? Three fucking years of this, and it never ends, it never stops hurting, all the things he never said just keep turning over and over and never stopping and stinging and he's bleeding out of every pore and he can't, _he can't, I'm so sorry, Sherlock, I can't. I loved you, I love you, please Sherlock, please forgive me._

Fitting, really, that'd be in Sherlock's room.

The smell's faded from there as well.

He takes a deep breath and he touches the walls, every one, touches the Periodic Table of Elements posters, and Sherlock's uncreased pillows, and the dust on the nightstand. He opens Sherlock's drawers and closet and runs his hands over his clothes like maybe if he tries hard enough he can still feel him.

He touches Sherlock's comforters, he crawls under them, he buries himself in them. He cries. He cries and he cries and he cries until he's as empty as he can be.

He takes extra care to turn off the light, to shut the door. Undisturbed, just like he wants it to be, just like he wants to be.

He doesn't go anywhere else, because the rafter over head is all he needs.

John presses Sherlock's scarf to his nose one last time, just one more time, and inhales as deeply as he can, and maybe, just maybe, there's a trace of Sherlock trapped there in the seams. Barely there, but it is, and John smiles. John smiles and he loops the scarf and the next thing he knows there's blood trapped in his head and his eyes and there's no air in his throat and in his lungs and there's nothing just the blackness and Sherlock, there's Sherlock with a hand held out, and oh God, he's so close, he –

"John! _John!"_

Oh, there's Sherlock, there's –

There's nothing.

(What John doesn't see, is Sherlock holding his body in his arms, rocking back and forth in the hallway of the flat, face buried in his neck. What he doesn't hear is, "My fault – John, no", what he doesn't know is that it's not over.)

John wakes up.

The hospital is barren, white, empty, cold. Did he do it – where's Sherlock, did he manage it? Did he, what's happening, is –

He sits up, quickly, but there's no rush of dizziness. Just confusion, but he's not panicked, not at all. If anything, he's peaceful. Peaceful, now there's something he hasn't felt in – oh God, he can't even remember.

Where is everyone?

"John."

He looks over on automatic, but the face that he sees cannot be possible. His hair, his eyes, his clothes are a stark contrast against the pure white backdrop of the hospital that John lays on, and everything in John chokes up, and then he's sobbing.

"I don't understand," he manages, because he doesn't, not at all.

Sherlock just looks at him.

"Am I -" it's so stupid, Sherlock will reprimand him. He says it anyway. "Am I dead?"

"Obviously."

Oh, God, it's him.

John blinks at Sherlock, once, twice. An angel then, oh he always knew Sherlock was an angel.

"Is this Heaven?" because it's not really Sherlock is it, it's an angel, it just looks like Sherlock.

Sherlock looks around. "Yes."

John frowns. "You're here?" he has to make sure, he does, btu he can't reach out and touch Sherlock. He might evaporate between his fingers.

"Well, it appears that's what tends to happen when one puts a round into their skull." There it is, that condescending lift he does with his eyes and his mouth, and then he's standing and taking John's hand.

John allows him, and together they stand, across from each other, and Sherlock's so close, and real, he has to be real.

Sherlock kisses him.

Kisses him, really kisses him, like all those times he's imagined, and it's beautiful and glorious and so real, so very real, there's no doubt anymore, Sherlock is real, and right here, and –

"Come along, John."

Off in the distance, there is a light.

John goes.


End file.
